Metacognitive Strategies: Do They Improve Student Learning? (Spoiler: Sometimes!) Metacognition FIG Group: Gretel Guest, Olga Hogrefe, Lori Khan, Scott Stauble, Dorothy Wood
How did this Metacognition thing begin? > Science involvement in Southeast Regional PULSE (Partnership for Undergraduate Life Sciences Education) > Developed a project to integrate metacognitive strategies into science courses > Dove-tailed well with FIG to show institutional support and keep us accountable beyond the PULSE meeting durhamtech.edu
That’s EPIC!! (Engaging Pedagogies In Classrooms) : Metacognition as a Tool to Improve Science Learning Science Division, Durham Technical Community College J. Scott Stauble, Dorothy Wood, Gretel Guest, Lori Khan, Kara Battle, Kathy Zarilla Project Abstract and Description Process and Procedure Early Results and Testimonials – Was There Improvement? Students often report the grade they earned on an exam • Interested instructors within the Science Discipline agreed to add a • General Biology Student • Microbiology Student does not reflect the time and effort they spent studying for lecture and/or activities on metacognition to their courses • First Exam: 62% • First Exam: 82% it. In an attempt to improve student performance, and link • Students were presented with various metacognitive-related • Second Exam: 87% • Second Exam: 98% student preparation more closely with performance handouts at the beginning of the semester, but not much time was outcomes, we are undertaking a metacognitive course given to talking about metacognitive strategies • “I took [my teacher’s] • “Even though I studied • Courses progressed as normal to Exam 1 strategy as follows: advice and made concept • After Exam 1 grades were posted, each participating instructor hard for the first exam, I • After the first exam, metacognitive strategies were cards after each lecture. I delivered a self-prepared presentation on metacognitive strategies, realized that it was not presented to the students was able to review the showing how they can help students succeed, based on information good enough. I asked • Grades from the first exam were compared to those gathered from Saundra Yancey McGuire’s presentations and cards and these told me myself the question: Am I from the second exam to see if there was any materials. what I didn’t know so I reading just to get a good improvement. • Students were explicitly encouraged to use metacognitive strategies could review that • score or reading to Metacognitive strategies will continue to be to prepare for Exam 2 [information] for the understand and apply emphasized throughout the semester. • Grades from Exam 1 were compared to grades from Exam 2, and exam.” • what I have learned in the Final grade distributions from courses receiving students who improved their grades significantly were asked to future?” metacognitive strategy support will be compared with describe what, if any, metacognitive strategies were used. distributions from classes lacking this focus to determine if the strategies improved overall student Examples of Materials Presented Difficulties Encountered and Future Directions performance. • At the end of the semester, students in courses actively • Difficulties: employing metacognitive strategies will be asked to • Days missed due to inclement weather had an adverse reflect on their perceptions of their learning. impact on Exam 2 grades, making comparison problematic, • Student perception, correlated with actual grade if not impossible. improvement, will guide future implementation of • Material on Exam 2 in all courses studied was more difficult metacognitive strategies. than material than Exam 1. A comparison of Exam 1 scores to the combined scores for all exams subsequent to the What is Metacognition? metacognitive strategy intervention may be more The ability to: informative. • Next Steps and Future of the Project: • Think about one’s own thinking • Have students complete end of course questionnaire about • Be consciously aware of oneself as a problem study habits/metacognitive strategies they found most solver effective. • Monitor, plan, and control one’s mental • Tailor future classroom metacognition presentations to processing • Accurately judge one’s level of learning those strategies students found most effective. • Engage more instructors at Durham Tech in teaching Flavell, J. H. (1976). Metacognitive aspects of problem metacognitive strategies through presentations in our solving. In L. B. Resnick (Ed.), The nature of Teaching and Learning Center. intelligence (pp.231-236). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. durhamtech.edu The Southeast Regional PULSE (SERP) Network is supported by award 1435389 from the National Science Foundation and support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
What does this mean for you? > The best strategies! (by student report) > Scott – Active Reading > Lori – Summarizing/Paraphrasing > Olga – Study Groups/Teaching Others > Gretel – Self-Testing > Dorothy – Bloom’s Taxonomy/Scaffolding durhamtech.edu
So, what IS Metacognition?? > The ability to: > Think about one’s own thinking > Be consciously aware of oneself as a problem solver > Monitor, plan, and control one’s mental processing (e.g. “Am I understanding this material, or just memorizing it?”) > Accurately judge one’s level of learning Courtesy of Dr. Saundra McGuire durhamtech.edu
Dr. McGuire’s Successes Robert, freshman chemistry student > 42, 100, 100, 100 A in course Michael, senior pre-med organic student > 30, 28, 80, 91 B in course Miriam, freshman calculus student 37.5, 83, 93 B in course durhamtech.edu
First Strategy: Reading Comprehension – Anticipatory Sets! Knowing what to read FOR affects your comprehension of the material greatly! > Preview material before reading > Develop questions you expect the passage to answer > Read one paragraph at a time while stopping to paraphrase the information read durhamtech.edu
Spring 2015: Initial Strategies, Successes, and (mostly) Failures Strategy: > Give a 15-30 minute lecture on metacognitive strategies to classes AFTER the first exam > Continue to encourage students to use metacognitive strategies while studying > Compare scores on first exams to those on second exams and look for improvements durhamtech.edu
Spring 2015: Initial Strategies, Successes, and (mostly) Failures Successes? Sadly, not so much… > Despite positive feedback from students on meta strategies, none of the courses showed any noticeable improvement! > Weather issues (nearly two weeks of courses missed between Exam 1 and Exam 2) > In most courses, Exam 2 was more difficult than Exam 1 > Were we maybe not really targeting the strategy correctly? durhamtech.edu
Second Strategy: Summarizing/Paraphrasing > Students with the most success reported telling another person about what they learned in class daily > Explain a concept out-loud or to another person (teaching someone else) > Pair-share durhamtech.edu
Fall 2015: Changing the Strategy • Targeting struggling students (C or lower on the first (or second for HS Biology) exam); • Send emails requesting a one-on-one meeting (some students responded); • Made metacognition materials available (posted on Sakai and/or presented at the S. McGuire seminar at the TLC in October). • Some students have shown improvement at the next exam. durhamtech.edu
Was Changing the Strategy Useful? • Some students have shown improvement at the next exam. Strategy focus Many students who improved their performance • studied with a classmate or joined a larger study group and/or • spent more tine solving practice problems. durhamtech.edu
CHM130 General, Organic and Biochemistry metacognition discussion with metacognition metacognition metacognition seminar, the instructor seminar seminar seminar, discussion with discussion with the instructor the instructor Came for the learning strategies discussion (total): 9, improved: 3 Came for the metacognition seminar (total): 14, improved: 4
A Story of Two CHM130 Students (the last two from the previous graph) Exam Exam Exam Exam Class What did they do differently 1 2 3 4 grade after they failed Exam 1 Student F. “I used the technique we were 56 91 87 88 B taught in the seminar and I went to tutoring 1 to 2 days a week. I also studied 1 hour day no matter what . Me and a couple of students had a study group also. The technique: the one where you read the chapters and put it in your own words . And the other technique where you work out the problems and check it to make sure it is right .” Student R. “I joined a study group. We taught 46 62 66 88 C each other .” durhamtech.edu
Middle College Honors Biology came for tutoring and advice on learning strategies A Metacognition talk was given to the whole class durhamtech.edu
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